The 36 bus

The 36 bus leaving Leeds for Ripon (Wikimedia Commons)

Everyone loves the 36 bus. It’s the one that takes us from out in the sticks of Ripon, via Harrogate to Leeds. It’s the one with plush leather seats, 4G wi-fi, USB points at every seat. It’s the one with a book-swap shelf where I always hope to find a new title to enjoy, while bringing in one of my own to swap. And best of all, we old fogeys travel for free on the 66 mile round trip.

The book-swap shelf wasn’t very exciting today. But I found a Fred Vargas to read.

Best get to the terminus early though. Everyone’s jockeying for the best seats, the ones at the front of the top deck, where you can watch as the bus drives through the gentle countryside separating Ripon from Harrogate, via Ripley, a village which the 19th century Ingleby family remodelled in the style of an Alsatian village, complete with hôtel de ville. After the elegance of Harrogate and its Stray, there’s Harewood House – shall we spot any deer today? Then shortly after, the suburbs of The Big City, which gradually give way to the mixture of Victorian and super-modern which characterises 21st century Leeds.

We had lots to do in Leeds today (more of that later, much later) and had a very good time being busy there. But much of our fun for the day came from sitting high up in that 36 bus, watching the world go by. For free.

Seats on the top deck secured.

Ripon to Harrogate.

You can’t see Ripley for the trees.

The message board keeps us in touch with waht’s going on.

Hurtling towards a roundabout in Harrogate.

‘Fashionable South side’ is what the estate agents call this part of Harrogate.

21 thoughts on “The 36 bus”

Wow wifi?! Buses have changed a lot since I last went on one! I remember the year the town hall was given a clean-up, it was all anyone could talk about, no-one realised what it really looked like as it had been covered in so much soot and grime for so long.

Your bus system is so different (and better!) than ours! No wonder traveling by bus here is avoided and everyone uses their car all the time. I like the idea of someone else doing the driving and I really like the idea of being on the top deck in the front!

Europeans surely know how to get around in style! I love the idea of a book swap on the bus – we often go by bus when traveling (bus tours) but no double deckers here in the US. 😦 (unless you are in NYC). The US can learn a lot from your transportation service including train travel.

That sounds like a fun bus to travel on. We have no local transport here only dial-a-ride buses (not on Sundays) or taxis. If we walk 4 miles we can get to a main road with a bus service once an hour or if we walk to a village a couple of miles away there is a bus that visits 2 or 3 times a week that takes us to the nearest market towns and then back again. We drive our cars everywhere! I like the idea of a book exchange on the bus. We have those in our churches and in old phone boxes in the villages.

I LOVE book exchanges in phone boxes! We no longer have a phone box here, or who knows….? Yup, here in the sticks we’re badly served by public transport. We have, on the whole, to drive into Ripon first.